


Dragon Blood

by WhatEvenAmI



Series: Albus and Minerva are bros [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Albus and Minerva are bros, Dragons, Friendship, Gen, Hungarian Horntail - Freeform, Male-Female Friendship, Minerva doesn't know how she got dragged into this shit, Near Death Experiences, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:37:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3059771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's widely known that Albus Dumbledore discovered the twelve uses of dragon blood. What's not so widely known is that he conducted his research with actual dragons.</p><p>Or, a very bored Albus Dumbledore wanted to go on an adventure and Minerva got dragged along for the ride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon Blood

The Hungarian Horntail scrambled over the boulder and thrust forth its great spiked head. The jet of roaring flame blackened thick lines into the grass. Minerva weaved left and right as she ran, guessing blindly at how to dodge the next blast.

From somewhere to her right she heard Albus shout an incantation. For a moment she hoped he'd subdued the beast, but judging by ground-shaking roar and the heat at her back, he'd only angered it. The hissing and crackling was closer this time, heat scorching the air around her.

Minerva didn't know how she'd managed to get herself dragged into this.

Well, yes, she did. When she found out that for his research on the potential uses of dragon blood Albus intended to conduct studies using actual dragons, she knew she'd never dissuade him. There were hundreds of highly trained dragon handlers throughout the world who would have been honored to provide him with the observations and the blood samples, to play a role in the work of Albus Dumbledore. Some of the most reputable dragon reservations were located throughout Romania, and there was a smaller one somewhere in Mongolia. Any one of them would have given him all he needed to complete his studies. 

Of course Albus was going to disregard her advice and seek out the dragons himself. And if her respected employer and good friend was going to go off to take foolhardy and inadvisable risks, she hardly thought she'd let him do so on his own.

He'd told her of his traveling plans that May, inviting her along as a "research assistant and traveling companion". He told her that his studies had hit several dead ends and that he wanted to speed things up a bit, to fill in pieces he was missing. He would go first to Norway to seek the the rare and elusive Ridgeback, then traverse Romania and visit as many dragon reservations as possible. If none of them contained a Horntail (a very likely possibility, as only the most powerful and well-trained handlers had a chance at subduing one of the loathsome beasts) he could search Hungary on the return journey.

When she suggested to him that he consult dragon handlers to actually procure the blood, he responded that this work was of utmost importance to him. As with everything important to him, he did not care to entrust it to strangers. He wanted the work done thoroughly, and he wanted it done well. As was always the case, he continued, when one wanted to ensure that something done thoroughly and done well, they did it themself.

Minerva suspected that in truth he did not always know what to do with himself when term was over.

Albus got restless and bored without sufficient work. She supposed that one of the heavy prices of a brilliant mind was the need to sate its appetite to discover. Then, too, there were other reasons. He'd confided in her one evening a couple years ago as they sat by the fireside in his office, splitting a bottle of oak-matured mead.

She'd been surprised to learn that a wizard such as himself hadn't been to see more of the world. He'd told her that he'd planned to go traveling with a friend upon graduation, as was common among young witches and wizards at the time. Then his mother had died, leaving behind his ill sister and unruly brother. He'd returned to his childhood home to ensure that the household ran smoothly, and therefore hadn't gone abroad in his youth.

Well, if he was trying to make up for lost time, then she wasn't going to try and interfere. As a matter of fact, she was honored and touched that he'd invited her to go with him. She simply didn't see why it had to be bloody _dragons_.

It had actually gone quite well up until this point. They'd researched the strength and nature of spells useful in subduing dragons, as well as the best methods for interacting with them.  And by sheer dumb luck, the Ridgeback they'd encountered had been a lone male, not in the height of mating season and not protecting any young. Between the spells of the accomplished witch and wizard, It had been fairly easily calmed. The magic had been potent and Albus's work quickly executed. The Ridgeback hadn't had the slightest idea that while Minerva kept it under a haze of tranquility by way of enchantment, Albus was taking numerous vials of its blood.

"Perhaps that Ridgeback would serve well as a pet for Rubeus. He would love that." Albus had remarked thoughtfully as they ate at a pub later that night.

"I sincerely hope that you're joking. Albus, don't get any ideas." 

He didn't answer, but his auburn beard twitched.

"There will be, under no circumstances, a dragon accompanying us on our travels," 

"Rubeus firmly maintains that they're merely seriously misunderstood."

"Misunderstood or otherwise, they will not be joining us as traveling companions." But she was smiling as she rarely smiled; how long had it been since  _she_ had traveled the world? Experienced, should she say, the thrill of adventure?

So few people had done anything like what she'd done that day. And it had been a wondrous experience. The Ridgeback had been beautiful, with a magnificent wingspan and a long graceful neck. He was the epitome of fierce predatory power, and once she'd succeeded in calming him, he had rubbed its head into her palm and yawned, rather like an extremely deadly house cat. He had opened that mouth capable of incinerating entire towns and ripping apart cattle within seconds, and he had licked her hand.

She hadn't been able to resist smiling, and she'd stroked his scaly head. "One must wonder if there is any potential use for a dragon's spit. If there is not, then I would like to thoroughly wash my hands." But she'd been joking. She'd stood next to a fully-grown dragon, petting it like a cat and joking with Albus and marveling at its truly stunning form. Just how often did opportunities like that come by?

The rest of the trip had gone about as well. In Romania there were heavily funded reservations that employed well-trained handlers. They knew which potions and spells were best suited for each type of dragon, with the result that Minerva and Albus had worked easily among a horde of heavily sedated creatures with hundreds of competent witches and wizards on standby. That, at the very least, put her mind at ease. It had been pure good fortune that their first dragon encounter had been an easy one, that it had responded well to the first strategies they had tried. It would have been pure stupidity to assume that every dragon would be so pliable.

Romania passed almost like a vacation; when they weren't admiring the dragons and chatting with the handlers they went sightseeing, wandered at leisure, and frequented local bars and pubs. They became increasingly fluent in Romanian and even picked up a bit of Hungarian. On a few occasions, usually after too much ale, they would practice their linguistics by constructing dirty phrases without using English. She mocked his somewhat pitiful attempts to pass as a Muggle, and he put up weeks' worth of a fuss before he finally allowed her to drag him out clothes shopping. Except for the times Albus was up late into the night mumbling over scrolls of parchment, Minerva nearly forgot that they were supposed to be working.

As their tour of the country drew to an end, however, dread began to cloud her sense of idyll. They visited an increasing number of reservations, but not one of them housed a Horntail. When asked, most of the handlers shook their heads with a smile and a muttered "Good luck with that". A few noted that they'd seen a Horntail subdued for a few purposes, but never held for long. Usually, they said, it was necessitated when one of the beasts was terrorizing one village in particular. A team of the most competent witches and wizards would do what needed to be done and then redirect the beast to another viable location. Keeping one in captivity on foreign ground would be a feat of intimidating proportions, if the locals even agreed to allow it into the country.

When the last of the reservations proved devoid of Hungarian Horntails, Albus got straight to the point. 

"The ease we've had with the sedated dragons leads me to believe that the Horntail-"

"Albus. Do you seriously mean to pursue one of the beasts, even after all we've heard of them?"

She should have known. Still, she was a bit surprised at his continued lack of common sense (hadn't his need to poke dragons with sticks been sated by this point?) and felt more apprehensive than ever. They were packing their trunks in a room above a pub, and she could hear the clinking of the many vials as he wrapped them carefully for transport.

"I need to know the difference in the effects of blood from the many variations of dragon. As it is, I lack one type."

"Albus-"

"Minerva, this blood..." he said as he held up a vial, "it is just like any ordinary creature's blood in all ways but one." 

She closed her trunk and straightened up. "What on Earth are you getting at?"

"It contains a hint of something very familiar...something that seems to bring back memories, but of what, I can't quite grasp. And I can't quite put my finger on why it's so familiar or where it comes from. Minerva, would you taste this and tell me what it reminds you of?"

She stared at him. "Albus, what on  _Earth_ does this have to do with...did you put that stuff in your  _mouth?_ Albus, in Merlin's name,  _what_ would possess you to put that stuff in your  _mouth?"_

Eyes twinkling, he said in Romanian, "You have no idea just what I would put in my mouth."

Caught off-guard, she stared at him. She was inclined to burst out laughing. Instead she shook her head and said, "I officially give up. We're going after a Horntail and you tasted dragon blood. I completely and utterly _give up_."

So it was decided. Their success with dragons in various states of induced sleep had set the stage for their plan: they'd stalk a Horntail and wait for it to rest, then use their most powerful spells to influence the depth of its slumber. Albus had, by this point, had plenty of practice drawing blood from dragons without causing them pain or distress. With any luck, they'd get what they'd come for and Disapparate before the Horntail knew what had happened.

There _was_ one minor flaw in that plan, they realized in hindsight. If the Horntail was already asleep, there was no way for them to gauge how efficiently their calming spells were working, or in fact if they were affecting the dragon at all.

And as it turned out, dragons didn't particularly _like_ being awakened to wizards trying to stick them with a syringe.

 _Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus,_ she thought hysterically,  _you're bloody telling_ me _._

She curled up under a boulder as fire shot over her head. Heat rose off the ground and reddened her arms. The boulder deflected most of the onslaught, flames swirling around the sides. Then, with a  _crack,_ the heat split it in two. Each half crashed to the ground, leaving her exposed to fire and beast. She looked up to see that dark spiked face swaying directly overhead.

She was going to bloody  _die_ here, and it was all so stupid because she was perfectly capable of Disapparating. But she wasn't leaving Albus and he wouldn't go before he got his _bloody_ vials filled.

The dragon drew its head back, preparing to incinerate Minerva and anything in her general vicinity, when suddenly it halted. Shuddered. The head drew back still further, lizard eyes bulging.

"Its eyes!" Albus's voice came from behind her, "Minerva! Aim for its eyes!" He shouted a string of spells and the dragon _hissed,_ steam curling from its nostrils. It actually retreated a few earth-shaking steps, thrashing its great head and blinking. 

"Minerva, get out of here! Get out now!"

"I am not leaving you here, you bloody  _idiot_ , Albus Dumbledore!" she shouted without looking back. Taking aim, she fired off a stream of curses that had the dragon snorting and shaking its head. It began to stamp aimlessly and erratically as though rabid. At this point she figured they could forget calming the thing to sleep, but perhaps they could knock it out instead-

But Albus was charging past her toward the temporarily incapacitated monstrosity. She shouted after him, but he didn't slow down before launching himself under its belly.

Resigned to the task of occupying the dragon long enough for Albus to get the blood, she racked her brains for more spells to keep it off-guard. Albus ducked to avoid flying claws, then positioned himself under the left hind leg. A vulnerable spot lay at the inner thigh, she knew by now, and beneath that, a heavily pulsing blood source. 

A shadow passed over her with a snapping sound, the breathtaking wingspan unfurling. If the Horntail lifted off, might Albus attempt to grab its leg and ride along? That frightening thought aside, in the air the dragon would have the complete advantage of them. It would roast them alive from on high. She had to keep it on the ground. Wand raised, she sent anything she could think of toward the wings.

Apparently they weren't as thickly scaled as the rest of the body, because the dragon shrieked and the wings abruptly folded back. 

Then the long neck straightened as the Horntail tossed its head back. Its howl resonated through the distant hills, and Minerva knew that Albus had pierced its thigh. Working frantically to buy him time, she gathered a tightly coiled ball of energy directly intended for that spiky face.

Just as she fired, that bloody spike-riddled  _tail_ came whipping up to protect the underbelly. Minerva couldn't see if Albus had been hit.

When her spell broke over the Horntail it whipped the beast into a yet-unseen level of frenzy. It pounded the ground with all four feet, ripping with claws, the tail snaking this way and that. To Minerva's immeasurable relief, Albus rolled out from under the dragon and charged back across the rocks, white-faced and missing his spectacles. He took his stance beside her, wand raised. Minerva redoubled her efforts, putting all her focus into the attack.

When the combination of spells overwhelmed the Horntail, it went completely rigid. Its legs folded beneath it and it fell, sending shockwaves so powerful that Albus and Minerva crashed to the ground in a heap. His body cushioned her fall.

That's when she noticed that his leg was damp and sticky. He was bleeding.

"You're injured!"

"Stun the Horntail. Ensure that it remains unconscious," he ordered, scrambling to his feet. She didn't know if the subsequent Stunning spells had any effect, but the dragon did not rise again.

"Let me see what I can do for your...Albus, what are you doing?" For he was limping back toward the unconscious spiky mountain that was the Hungarian Horntail.

"I would finish collecting while I have this opportunity."

"Your leg-"

"Can wait. It won't kill me."

Minerva watched in helpless frustration while Albus located a blood source in a wing trailing along the ground. She wanted to examine his leg and then Disapparate as quickly as possible, but it would be infuriating to have gone through all that only to leave without what they'd come for.

Finally he capped his vials and they vanished up his sleeve. Only then did he allow her to examine his injury. She sat him down on a rock and gingerly drew her wand around his bloodstained left thigh, severing the pant leg. 

"A terrible shame. You went to such trouble to choose these clothes." Minerva ignored him and carefully slid the pant leg to the ground.

She winced at the network of deep scratch marks, running midcalf to mid-thigh. She wasn't sure if they'd been caused by claws or spikes or a combination of the two, but they were clearly strongly magical injuries. No ordinary cuts would smoke like that, no ordinary cuts would already smell of fester and rot. This was bad. The wound was likely growing more poisonous by the minute.

She did her best to slow the blood flow, though as she'd suspected, she couldn't stop it. She cleaned what she could and attempted the strongest methods of Healing she knew. She managed to reduce the redness, to stitch the scars back together at the edges. But the wound was still a terrible noxious thing and she had not the wherewithal to set it right.

"Albus, we must find the nearest hospital. I'll take you directly to St. Mungo's if I must, but this will require the immediate attention of trained Healers."

"I'm not arguing, Minerva," he said with an air of tired satisfaction, "I got everything I came for, and now my work begins. Oh, don't fuss over me," he added with mock irritability, "It's not all that bad." He leaned forward to observe the wound, frowning thoughtfully. "It looks a bit like a map of some sort, don't you think?"

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So in the beginning of Sorcerer's Stone, Dumbledore mentions that he has a scar on his knee that resembles a map of the London Underground and I just really wanted to write a fic about how he got it. Plus, dragons.
> 
> Oh, also, "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus" is the Hogwarts motto. It translates to "Never tickle a sleeping dragon".


End file.
